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Harry Marks wrote:They made a big deal of the Ukrainians not knowing the aid had been withheld until Politico published it, as if they would have acted like the aid was in hand despite it not arriving and not arriving.

DOD received calls from Ukraine about the hold on aid on 7/25/19, the day of the infamous phone call. The Dept of State received similar inquiries within a week, so Ukraine understood the situation on military aid right away.

One interesting but under-reported fact is the pressure on Zelensky began even before he was inaugurated. The prospect of high level American officials attending his inauguration was conditioned on Zelensky announcing investigations into Hunter Biden. VP Pence abruptly cancelled his trip to that ceremony just before it started because the announcement had not been made.

A particularly damning fact about the campaign in Ukraine is that it was largely based on a conspiracy theory that was promulgated by Russia. I don't think Trump is a willing puppet of Russia, but he might as well be, since he so easily latches on to the right-wing conspiracy stuff. It's no wonder that Putin wanted Trump to be president.

Indeed, the now famous recording where Trump says, "take her out"—meaning get rid of Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, you can hear Lev Parnas goading the president to do it. The campaign to pressure the Ukraine was quite possibly largely Guilliani's pet project. Far from being a mastermind criminal, Trump is just basically incompetent. That's where we are. And that's also why the Senate will very likely not remove him from office.

The man has an enormous reserve of spite. Some say that, regarding Barack Obama, it originated in 2011 at the White House Correspondents' dinner attended by Trump, where Obama made jokes at the thin-skinned Donald's expense. Afterwards, of course, Trump's rise to prominence was aided by his aggressive promotion of birtherism. During his presidency, he has tried to tear down anything considered an achievement of Obama's. It's not unlikely that going after Obama's ex-VP was fed by Trump's hatred of all things Obama, with the election a secondary motive.

A pundit, Ruth Marcus, mentioned Chief Justice John Roberts' caution to members of both parties to temper their language within the precincts of "the world's greatest deliberative body," the Senate. But who, she asked, will caution the president, who assails the opposition as "sleazebags."? The depths to which Trump has brought the once-proud office are astonishing.

I'm going to remove this topic as a "sticky" thread since it doesn't look like Trump will be impeached.

Donald J. Trump was impeached. Just sayin.

You know...good point. LOL

This all brings up a possible situation that WOULD be historical. Trumps is re-eledted, but the House and Senate are both controlled by Democrats. Could Trump be the first President to be impeached TWICE?

Not only will he be impeached again, I expect charges will be brought against William Barr. I hope that Roger Stone's pardon will be examined for legality.

You may be right. God politics are disgusting and upsetting.